Printing operations have been performed by recording dots of color material (ink, for example) on a recording medium (paper, for example). Further, a technique, such as a halftone process using error diffusion process, has been proposed for processing multi-level image data comprising a plurality of color components (cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K), for example) by setting the dot formation state of each color component in a target pixel while sequentially shifting the position of the target pixel.